What affect students´ mental health and well-being in and out of school?
Short description
The mental health and well-being of children and young people has deteriorated in recent years, according to international research and the Swedish Public Health Agency. The project will study young peoples´ mental health from a holistic perspective including school-related well-being during the period 1980 to 2023, to identify factors from a bio-psycho-social perspective, the relationship to academic achievement, and the effects of different education- and grading systems.
The impact of personal, environmental, and biopsychosocial factors in and out of school on students' mental health and well-being: A longitudinal cohort study
The mental health and well-being of children and young people has deteriorated in recent years, according to international research and the Swedish Public Health Agency. In Sweden, children show lower satisfaction with life compared with children in other European countries. Psychosomatic symptoms such as sleep problems, anxiety and nervousness have increased in recent decades but especially in the last ten years. This is an alarming result as a healthy development during childhood and adolescence is important for the level of education and for the opportunity to live a satisfying and productive life. Research has shown that schools have become increasingly recognized for playing a key role in promoting the health and well-being of young people.
Data from UGU
The project will use data from the national infrastructure Evaluation through Follow-up (UGU). The project is based on a nationally representative sample of students from eight cohorts born between 1967 and 2004 with a total of 76,673 students in grades six with follow-up in grades nine and 12. Students' answers to questionnaires in grades 6, 9 and 12 will be used. This data also contains register information such as grades, results on national tests and background variables.
Three sub-projects
The project will run for three years, 2023-2025. Three sub-projects will be carried out and the analyzes will be based on large-scale data, which makes it possible to investigate relationships between personal and school-related characteristics. Both descriptives and more advanced statistical analyzes will be performed such as e.g. confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
The aim of the project
The aim of the project is to develop in-depth knowledge of how children and adolescents' mental health has changed from the early 1980s to today and what relationships look like between personal, environmental and social influencing factors and children and adolescents' mental health . The project will also find out what these relationships look like for different groups of students, e.g. girls and boys and low- and high-achieving students.
Evaluation Through Follow-up ETF (UGU)
The research infrastructure UGU stands for Utvärdering Genom Uppföljning ("Evaluation Through Follow-up" in english) and is one of the largest research databases in Sweden in the field of education. The database contains nationally representative samples of students from ten cohorts, born between 1948 and 2004.
